We have been enjoying these cold, quiet, beautiful days of winter. As I look out the windows from our home it is so peaceful to see Mother Nature sleeping and preparing for the beautiful green days of Spring. We have had unusually cold days and so much rain. I am sure that will be an added blessing for Spring.
You can see the leafless, sleeping trees in the backyard.
You can see the leafless trees all the way down to the pond in the below photo.
It is the same in the front yard. There are so many trees quietly sleeping and waiting for Spring.
Since no flowers are blooming in our area during these quiet days of
winter, our local Garden Club presented a natural-greenery-floral-arrangement-demonstration last week, and it was so interesting. You can see the bucket of greenery in the below photo. The greenery was selected from a member's backyard that morning. You can probably identify the large green leaves as the Cast Iron plant.
As you can see, the leaves of the Cast Iron plant look a lot like corn leaves. The Cast Iron plant gets its name form its ability to tolerate poor conditions and a good bit of neglect. This is an old-fashioned plant which was very popular in Victorian times. It grows very well in the South and survives the outside cold as far North as Zone 7B.
Our floral designer was very creative. She started with a collection of Magnolia leaves in the middle and added multiple long leaves of the Cast Iron plant, which she folded in half tying the ends together. She added a different kind of very long leaves and tied the whole arrangement together. Then she added pretty ribbon. As you can see she created a very pretty green bouquet which would look very pretty for a natural table arrangement.
I was so interested in what the floral designer was doing I forgot to get a picture of the Oasis she used for the base of the next arrangement. If you would like to know more about Oasis and how it is used in floral arrangements just click on the below link for a quick demonstration:
The floral designer continued to add greenery from her collection. I wish I could tell you the names of all the greenery she used. Everything she used you probably have in your backyard also, or something similar.
For the next arrangement she chose a pedestal-glass-vase. She selected the same greenery for the vase. As you can see it turned out so pretty. She suggested placing flowers mixed in with the greenery if you choose to do so. I thought it would be so pretty with some camellias placed within the greenery. Hydrangeas mixed in with the greenery would also be very pretty.
Well! How pretty! There they are in the below photo, the three arrangements she made. How nice to take a few minutes to collect up some greenery from our yard and make some pretty inside natural arrangements. She said they last for many days and make your home look so bright and cheerful during these winter days.
After that interesting demonstration we had a nice delicious brunch
in the dining room at the Garden Club.
It is always nice to go to the Tallahassee Garden Club for a visit. It is located in an old historic home built in 1840 in the downtown area. Loving old things the way I do, it is very special to visit there. I'm so glad you came along too, and hopefully you were inspired to create a beautiful greenery arrangement as much as I was.
Hope you are keeping warm and cozy during these beautiful January days and I wish you many blessings wherever you may be.
